Globalstar sat phone help

[hellosailor]

"The problem is that Vista keeps crashing" Bob, it sounds like the GlobalStar communicaitons software--or whatever software your friend is using--is built for XP, not Vista. And that's an old story, if the software isn't written for the OS, it often WILL crash, with no solution.

You can set the properties in the software, as Leopold mentions, to tell Vista to run it in "compatibility mode" and sometimes that works. Sometimes it doesn't, in which case you can use VirtualPC to run a "virtual" computer with XP or another OS on the laptop. A bit of effort, but VPC is free, and that's one way to keep Vista but run XP on the same machine. It probably will support the software--but that's not for certain either.

Your friend might find it simplest to "do the math" and just curtail his file size. If he's got a 15 minute window at 9600bps, that's about 3.4mB of file transfer time. If I had to look forward to that, I'd probably try to shoot for a 2.5-3mB file size, maximum.

If his software installs as a standard network connection (under XP or Vista or even Windows2000) it should have an option to show the network icon in the system tray, and if you bring that up it also shows the number of bytes transferred in any session, so he can see what actually makes it, or how long it takes to send one megabyte, etc.

[AlanBrown]

Cam,

Looks like Pocketmail is still in business. I started using one in 1999 and still have one of their Composer units. I used the heck out of mine in the Bahamas, the Keys, and all across the country when I was traveling. It never gave me a moment's problem.

If I can expand on this thread a bit, communication is probably one of the talked about discussion topics among cruisers. Solutions can be complex and costly (SSB), costly (Iridium), not too expensive (Globalstar), or rather inexpensive (Pocketmail), just to name a few.

(For those unfamiliar with Pocketmail, it is a Blackberry-sized text messenger which allows you to send and receive an unlimited number of text messages up to 5K (?) in length. All you do is dial an 800 number to contact PM, hold the unit up against the phone receiver, press the send button, and it will send and receive all your messages. Cost of the service is less than $20/mo.)

When I started cruising, I evaluated all of these options and ended up with a Pocketmail, as my cruising budget didn't permit the purchase of anything more expensive. It worked fine for us at the time, because we were always close to civilization and could access a public telephone. It worked well for us in the Bahamas, as long as we were close to a BATELCO pay phone. When we were offshore or tucked into some deserted anchorage, we couldn't use it.

My next great thought was to purchase a Globalstar phone so I could transmit my Pocketmail text messages via satellite, no matter where we were located. Big disappointment! The satellite coverage was so spotty and fleeting, that I finally gave up on this idea and went back to looking for a land line in order to use my PM.

Skip forward to 2009. Cell phone coverage is becoming nearly universal. What's to prevent matching a PM with a working cellphone and transmitting and receiving data this way. As long as there is a cellphone signal, you can talk and text anytime you want. Also, the speed of its data transmission means you won't use up too many cellphone minutes.

This is the direction I plan to explore this summer and would like to know if anyone out there has found this to be workable approach. If it is, at a cost of $99 for the unit and less than $20/mo. for unlimited service, PM may be a very cost effective way to stay in touch while cruising. All I'll need in addition to the PM, is a Bahamas-ready cellphone and a calling card.

Anyone out there who's tried this already?

[Roberthussey]

thanks guys for all the tips, I'll pass them on to my friend to see if he can improve things. The problem appears to be Vista related, perhaps one of these ideas will sort it out,
The phone itself seems to work quite well when he can see a bird. He has called me and it is a crystal clear connection, just can't get into a 30 minute discussion !
Thanks again, Bob

[ecsimonson]

Originally Posted by AlanBrown

Skip forward to 2009. Cell phone coverage is becoming nearly universal. What's to prevent matching a PM with a working cellphone and transmitting and receiving data this way. As long as there is a cellphone signal, you can talk and text anytime you want. Also, the speed of its data transmission means you won't use up too many cellphone minutes.

If all it does is send text messages can't you do that with just the cell phone? Never dealt with cell phones outside of the US so not sure how it works but seems like it should.

[danielgoldberg]

Originally Posted by AlanBrown

Skip forward to 2009. Cell phone coverage is becoming nearly universal. What's to prevent matching a PM with a working cellphone and transmitting and receiving data this way. As long as there is a cellphone signal, you can talk and text anytime you want. Also, the speed of its data transmission means you won't use up too many cellphone minutes.

This is the direction I plan to explore this summer and would like to know if anyone out there has found this to be workable approach. If it is, at a cost of $99 for the unit and less than $20/mo. for unlimited service, PM may be a very cost effective way to stay in touch while cruising. All I'll need in addition to the PM, is a Bahamas-ready cellphone and a calling card.

Anyone out there who's tried this already?

I have two thoughts on this. First, if you can get cell service, then that means a true Blackberry will work, and will provide much better service and functionality than Pocketmail for a host of reasons (sadly enough, at this point in my life a Blackberry is as much a necessity as is food). Second, just plug your cell phone into your laptop and you can access the Internet and email that way. You'll need an ISP, but that's not really a problem. It won't be fast (unless you're in a 3g area), but no slower than using a satphone, etc. Just my 2 cents.